To obtain prevalence estimates of dementia in China, an analysis of 17 studies published in Chinese from 1990–1999 was carried out. The prevalence rates for the population aged 60 years and older were 1.26% for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and 0.74% for vascular dementia (VD). The prevalence of AD was 2.10% in women and 0.76% in men, while the prevalence of VD was 0.71 and 0.69%, respectively. The prevalence of AD among the three educational levels in our study (illiterate, primary school and high school) were 1.79, 0.45 and 0.15%, respectively, and those of VD were 0.26, 0.58 and 0.26%, respectively. Although the prevalence of AD (2.29%) was higher in urban than in rural areas (1.67%), the difference was not statistically significant. The difference between the prevalence of VD in urban (0.67%) and in rural areas (1.13%) was not significant either. The prevalence of AD increased with age, and gender was found to be associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The prevalence of VD also increased with age, but there was no association between VD and gender.

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